Lottie Tomlinson Takes Us Behind the Scenes at London Fashion Week

It's 5 a.m. on a Saturday, and while most 17-year-olds can be found sound asleep for another six hours (same, TBH), Lottie Tomlinson is already out of bed and gearing up for another full day of work at London Fashion Week. Having already assisted with creating beauty looks earlier in the week — first on hair with her beauty mentor, Lou Teasdale, at the London College of Fashion MA show and then, makeup for Lucy Joan Pearson at Charlotte Simone's presentation — Lottie's weekend schedule is full of fashion shows, both working backstage and sitting front row.

Having received her beauty training from Lou while touring the world with One Direction, Lottie's untraditional start in the beauty world seems to have her more than prepared when we meet up at Bleach London Hair Salon. "It definitely helps you get used to that kind of environment," Lottie says of trading one fast-paced backstage atmosphere for another. "But fashion week is so different [because] you never know what you're going to get, which can sometimes be stressful," she adds. With chips and chocolate chip cookies in hand (fashion week survival food at its finest), we're off.

"Often as an assistant I'll get booked last minute so you just turn up prepared for anything — I kinda like it that way!" she tells us. To help combat some of the stress, Lottie arrives early for the shows she's assisting, setting up her kit (Maybelline Dream Bronze BB Cream, MAC Prep+Prime, and Fudge Urban Dry Shampoo are among her essentials) and waiting for her models to make their way backstage. When she isn't helping to create the runway looks, Lottie can be found backstage studying the pros (like one of her favorites, MAC makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench) and snapping pictures to serve as her own inspiration. "It was crazy, but we did it," Lottie says of her marathon fashion week, which you can check out through her pictures and words ahead.

"All the girls in the lineup for Charlotte Simone. I love the looks so much and would deffo wear them myself! My favorite is the black patent jacket with the pink [trim collar] because I love wearing jackets, but they can sometimes make your outfit too plain."

"The girls in line up for the LCF Ma 16 show. Lou and I thought it looked sick when all the pointy braids were in lineup together. My job was to keep the braids sticking up in the right direction!"

"Ahh, this is Isamaya Ffrench and me. I was so excited to meet her because she's one of the makeup artists I look up to. She was super nice and talked me through the inspiration for the makeup and how she created it."

"I loved doing the makeup for the Charlotte Simone show. We made the skin as natural as possible with dewy cheeks, taupe eyes, and nude lips. It really complemented the clothes."

"The Mimi Wade presentation was right up my alley. The models looked stunning, and I loved how the glossy red lip added a bit of color to the presentation."

"It was amazing to watch Alex [Brownsell] create this hair — she's so clever. She used figure-eight pinning to create the curls at the front. I'd never seen that technique before, so she showed me how to do it and even let me do a few!"

"This was one of my favorite makeup looks from fashion week, the Ryan Lo show. It was done by Isamaya Ffrench and she told me the look was inspired by the collection, which had a princess of Chinatown theme."